


Sober

by thelinus



Category: The Libertines
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Peter reflects, nothing happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 08:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8659264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelinus/pseuds/thelinus
Summary: Peter reflects on his and Carl's relationship.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A snippet of fic from this time last year, found as I was browsing through my folders. Don't think I'll finish it, but it sort of works on it's own and isn't entirely crap so I figured I would post it.

It’s mid afternoon, the sun slanting lazy and warm through the kitchen blinds, already beginning to take on the red-tinged hue of sundown. The sun is starting to set and they’ve only just barely made it out of bed.  
Carl is sat across from him, hands half hidden by the tatty sleeves of a jumper wrapped around his mug of tea, a cigarette clenched between two fingers, distractedly ashing on the rough wood of the table. He is squinting out at the sun, a frown creasing his forehead as if engaged in some battle of wills with the golden glare, defiant. 

They haven’t spoken a word, yet. He’d been sat up on the mattress, leaning back against the wall when Carl had grunted and rolled over, always sounding, as he woke up, as if he’d been startled out of some dream. He had waited until Carl managed to crack open one sleep-encrusted eye and lifted a corner of his mouth in greeting, only receiving another grunt – this one muffled by a pillow – in return. They only dealt in sloppy muscle twitches and inarticulate noises for the first half-hour after waking up. Always had.

The difference between now and then – before the ten, eleven, twelve, too many years where they somehow ceased to be them, ceased to be brothers, lovers, everything to each other and somehow became (painfully longed for) enemies instead – is that then, after the haze of sleep - or more often, its lack - had worn off their conversation would return, either as irritated banter or scraps of lyrics dreamed up in the night, now shared between as they shared their second or third morning fag. Carl always tended to be quiet, ruminating and mumbling and generally grumpy, but he would swim in the current of Peter’s enthusiasm, his never-ending stories and fantasies that seemed to pour out of his mouth as easily as breathing.

Now, though. Now the sleepy morning silences dragged on until he was itching with the discomfort of it all; or were roughly terminated by the business side of being in a band, by logistics and schedules and phone calls. Or (and Peter preferred this interruption to the other) by wandering hands and mouths, by mumbled moans and grunts by the end of which he’d ceased to worry about conversation anyway, lost in another haze.  
By the time it cleared, Carl was usually gone. 

He couldn’t fault Carl for that, didn’t really. He liked the sex as much as he always had, craved it more than he’d used to, now that his blood was no longer pulsing with chemicals vying for his attention. Now that he could appreciate having what had been taken away from him for too many fucking years. And he never used to linger himself, back in the day. They had been lovers, but never a couple – though they did see more of each other, talk more to each other, and give more to each other than they had to anyone else at the time.

But he hated the silence. It never came very easily to him, especially not with Carl. There seemed to be some invisible gag imposed on him by Carl and he didn’t know how to break free of it. He felt as if the not entirely comfortable silence contained a silent reprimand, an unspoken judgment that he couldn’t quite convince himself he didn’t deserve.


End file.
